River Plate Moved On and Charly Alcaraz Stayed at Everton

Charly Alcaraz is still an Everton player after River Plate asked about him in June and then signed Thiago Almada. The 23-year-old midfielder remains under contract at Hill Dickinson Stadium until June 2027.

The summer window shut with him on the books, two league cameos already logged in 2026-27, and the Argentine club that tested the market gone elsewhere.

River Plate Asked, Then Paid €20m for Almada

On 9 June 2026, Argentine transfer reporter Germán García Grova asked about Alcaraz’s exit conditions and said River had been in contact with the player’s camp the week before. Everton, he wrote, had not said whether it wanted a sale, a loan, or no move at all.

River preguntó condiciones por Carlos Alcaraz. El mediocampista ofensivo de 23 años disputó 20 partidos en Everton. El equipo aún no respondió sobre si desea venderlo o que emigre en calidad de cedido.

Germán García Grova, transfer reporter, on X

Pablo Longoria, River’s sporting director, was treating Alcaraz as cover if a run at Thiago Almada collapsed. River had already brought in Nicolás Otamendi and Mauro Arambarri. Almada was the first choice for the attacking midfield slot. Alcaraz was the name they could live with if that chase died.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The ask: River contacted Alcaraz’s camp in early June and wanted terms for a loan or a sale.
• The first choice: On 8 August 2026 Atlético Madrid announced an agreement over the transfer of Almada, who had played 40 matches, scored four goals and added two assists in his only season in Spain.
• The fee: River paid €20 million, a record incoming deal for an Argentine club, and signed Almada through 31 December 2030.
• The outcome: Alcaraz was still listed as an Everton player when the English window closed.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A bid: No public offer from River for Alcaraz has been put on the record.
• Everton’s reply: The club never said whether it priced him, offered a loan, or took him off the list.
• January: A later window could still test the same short contract, but that River path is closed.

River fans who saw the June story treated Alcaraz as a drop in quality they did not want. They were waiting for Almada. Once that deal landed, the backup file on a 23-year-old in England had nothing left to do.

The Buyout Everton Did Not Have to Use

Flamengo sent Alcaraz to Everton on 31 January 2025, and Everton listed him on 4 February. The loan carried a mandatory buy if he started nine Premier League games. He started seven. The obligation never kicked in. Everton still triggered the option to sign him on 31 May 2025.

Everton have triggered the option to make Charly Alcaraz a permanent signing for an undisclosed fee when his loan from Brazilian side Flamengo concludes next month.

Everton Football Club, 31 May 2025

The option was set at €15 million (£12.6 million). Flamengo could earn up to another €3 million if he hit start targets and if Everton reached European competition, above all the Champions League. Those add-ons needed minutes and a European place. Neither arrived in 2025-26.

Flamengo had paid about €18 million to take him from Southampton on 28 August 2024, then a club record. He managed 19 games, three goals and two assists in Brazil before the January loan. Selling him on for €15 million, with extras that never cleared, was a cut-price exit on a player Rio had stretched to sign.

Everton got a two-year deal through June 2027 and kept an option on a third year. That short paper was the tell. They liked what they had seen. They did not want to be stuck with him.

685 League Minutes and a Mansfield Goal

The loan had a clean story. Alcaraz started against Crystal Palace on 15 February 2025, scored the winner in the 80th minute of a 2-1 game, and added an assist. Everton counted five goal involvements from 16 games, seven of them starts: two goals, three assists. One of those league goals was the 1-0 winner at Newcastle on the last day.

The first full season did not follow that line. He made 22 appearances across all competitions in 2025-26. Twenty of those were in the Premier League. Six were starts. He logged 685 league minutes, scored none, and finished with one league assist. His one strike was a long-range EFL Cup goal against Mansfield Town in August 2025.

ALCARAZ AT EVERTON, SPELL BY SPELL

He has worn 24. In 2026-27 he has come off the bench twice in the league, against Crystal Palace on 22 August and Bournemouth on 29 August, and he played in the 4-0 League Cup win at Preston North End on 26 August. Everton visit Tottenham Hotspur on 12 September.

That is the gap the June enquiry was poking at. A player who won points on loan spent the next league season as a spare part, then opened the new one the same way.

What the Two-Year Deal Was For

Alcaraz came through Racing Club in La Plata, left for Southampton in January 2023, went to Juventus on loan in January 2024 and won the Coppa Italia, then joined Flamengo that August. By the time Everton made him permanent he had already changed countries three times in two and a half years. The two-year contract, with a one-year option, matched that pattern. It left a sale door open before he could walk for nothing in 2027.

FROM RACING TO THE NEW GROUND

1. January 2023: Leaves Racing Club for Southampton.
2. January 2024: Joins Juventus on loan and wins the Coppa Italia.
3. 28 August 2024: Signs for Flamengo in a deal worth about €18 million.
4. 31 January 2025: Flamengo confirms a loan to Everton for the rest of 2024-25.
5. 15 February 2025: Scores and assists on his first league start, at Crystal Palace.
6. 31 May 2025: Everton triggers the €15 million option on a deal to June 2027.
7. August 2025: Scores against Mansfield in the EFL Cup.
8. 9 June 2026: River Plate asks Everton about a loan or a sale.
9. 8 August 2026: River signs Thiago Almada instead, for €20 million.

Transfermarkt still carried him at €15 million on 3 June 2026, the same number as the option Everton had paid. A sale back toward that fee would have been a wash on the books, not a windfall. River, shopping for a creator and already stretching for Almada, was never likely to top it.

Deadline Day Left Moyes Short of Bodies

Everton finished 13th in 2025-26. The side had sat eighth with ten games left, then took no wins in its last seven and missed Europe. Missing that place cut the extra match income Moyes had wanted and left the club selling to buy.

The window that followed did not cash Alcaraz. It cashed Iliman Ndiaye, who joined Manchester City, and it lost a late run at Folarin Balogun when the striker’s medical broke down. After the deadline, Moyes said he was disappointed the club had not done more business and that things had not gone their way. He also said the club had been looking to get money in, and that he would look at free agents.

Alcaraz was one name in a wider midfield clear-out debate that also included Forest interest in James Garner. The players who stayed are now the depth chart.

WHAT THE WINDOW LEFT BEHIND

• The sale that happened: Ndiaye went to Manchester City; Alcaraz did not go to River.
• The signing that failed: Balogun’s move collapsed on deadline day after a medical.
• The squad problem: Moyes was left hunting free agents with a thin outfield group and one recognised striker.
• The leftover: A 23-year-old still paid on a deal to June 2027, available for the bench if not the first eleven.

Keeping fringe midfielders looks less like indecision once the senior list is that short. The same names River asked about in June are now the spare parts a stripped squad actually needs on a Saturday.

Hill Dickinson Still Lists Him

Alcaraz is not pushing his way into Moyes’s league XI. Two substitute outings and a cup cameo do not rewrite 685 league minutes without a goal. He also is not the River Plate story anymore. That club spent €20 million on the man it wanted and handed him a contract into 2030.

What Everton holds is a midfielder they chose to buy when they did not have to, on paper short enough to sell, in a summer when the serious bid never arrived. The next league date is Tottenham on 12 September. He will be in the squad or he will not. The exit that was supposed to follow the June call has already missed its window.